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broda barnes | thyroid gland

ISSUE 7. Date: April 27th 2013

Engine Speed. The Thyroid Gland

The big dividing line in healing philosophy between staid conventional colleagues
and doctors like myself, is that we believe the patient more than we believe
laboratory tests. If there is a conflict, we assume the patient is a more
accurate monitor of disease than blood tests. I mean, how crazy is it to state
to a patient that, We have done all the tests and there is nothing wrong,
when the patient says she feels awful? (happens often)
Take the treatment and investigation of thyroid disease as an example.
Doctors who don't think for themselves, but rely solely on the blood tests, will
ignore striking clinical symptoms such as fatigue, depression, sensitivity to
cold, weight-gain, dry skin, hair loss in a middle-aged or older person, because
the thyroid markers are "normal". Good holistic doctors will follow the
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symptoms and treat the clinical condition, which clearly exists in this situation.
The fact is that up to 20% of the population is probably suffering from some
degree of hypothyroidism (low thyroid function), though in some territories it
could be much higher. The older you get, the more prone you are to the
condition; it's part of natural aging. But it is still pathological and it should be
treated!
Low thyroid function can be associated with a huge range of medical
pathologies. Doctors who do not think of it as a primary cause of ill health are
missing the real problem, time and again, and saddling their patients with
worthless treatments that are doomed to failure.
Hypothyroidism, as its called, or myxedema, can underpin conditions such as
musculo-skeletal pain, obesity, heart disease, fatigue, weight gain, slow
speech, menstrual difficulties, food allergies, emotional and behavioral
disorders, auto-immune disease, loss of libido, infertility, low sperm count,
brittle nails, dry skin, raised cholesterol, depression, osteoporosis, anxietytension even cancer! Need I go on?
When I say underpins, I mean: if the low thyroid condition is corrected, the
other symptoms go away; they dont need separate treatment.

Before and after treatment of myedema

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So why arent doctors finding this condition reliably and frequently, if it really is
very common?
Testing Difficulties
Part of the problem is that the tests are pretty crude and the disease has to
become serious in degree before anything shows up as altered blood levels.
Also the usually quoted range is so wide it is relatively meaningless and you
could be 50% down on "average" and still said to be within normal limits.
Doctors rely on measuring thyroid hormones in the blood, notably T4, T3 and
the infamous TSH. TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is now held to be the
gold standard of thyroid function testing. But it is almost USELESS clinically! A
patient can be profoundly sub-thyroid, yet the TSH lies within the normal
range.
Instead of throwing out the TSH and finding a better test, doctors throw out
the patients and say the symptoms are meaningless, the test is infallible! Any
doctor who attempts to treat a patient for an obvious clinical sub-thyroid
condition, when the TSH is normal, risks losing his or her license. It has
happened to colleagues and several good doctors have been destroyed in the
altar of phoney lab standards.
Its mind-boggling that so-called medical science has come to this degree of
stupidity and neglect.
But there is a better test; two, in fact.
Most accurate and longest-established is the basal metabolic rate test (BMR).
It is cumbersome and lengthy and requires the patient to completely rest in a
controlled environment, while temperature readings are taken, along with
gaseous exchange rates from the lungs. BMR is very reliable at diagnosing low
thyroid function but most doctors are not familiar with it and would never ask
for the test.
Pity. The other test is nearly as reliable and much simpler
The Broda Barnes Temperature Test
This simple easy to self-administer test for thyroid function means taking
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regular daily measurements of basal temperature - the so-called Broda Barnes

test, named after the doctor who first wrote about it.
Basal temperature means taking it while at absolute rest. In ordinary terms
that means first thing on waking, after the body has been lying still overnight.
Core temperature drops to its lowest at this point.
To measure your own basal temperature, use a clinical thermometer, keep it
in your armpit, before getting out of bed or any activity whatsoever, for at
least five minutes. Record the results.
Generally, if it is running at 97.80 F or less, that is good presumptive evidence
of low thyroid function. If the temperature is taken by the rectal route, normal
is almost a degree higher and so below 97.80 F would be considered
significantly low.
Allowance may need to be made for women who are ovulating, since the
temperature naturally rises about 0.5 of a degree at this time.
Mixed Pathology
Doctors such a Mark Starr MD, and his mentors Broda Barnes and Lawrence
Sonkin, are firm in the view that thyroid dysfunction is primary. Im not quite
so sure. I think allergic overload can lead to auto-immune dysfunction and
antibody attacks on the thyroid: so-called Hashimotos disease. Environmental
chemical pollution and heavy metal toxicity complicated everything; that too
can lead to inflammatory thyroid disease. Adrenal exhaustion is almost par for
the course, once any of the other conditions are established and allergies get
worse, once thyroid function is compromised. Throw in widespread iodine
deficiency, some other common nutritional deficiencies, and the whole picture
becomes very muddled and confusing.
I have seen hundreds of cases over the years and certainly found that thyroid
issues come up, over and over, and that correcting this first is often they key
to correcting the allergy problems and overload.
But then I am very aware of the work of my friend William Rea MD, one of my
own mentors, who has found that often a detox and chemical unburdening will
correct thyroid dysfunction, without needing to administer supplementary
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thyroid hormone.
So its a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.
The best advice to anyone not in blazing good health, with abundant zest, is to
explore the thyroid avenue with a competent holistic doctor. At least take a
series of basal temperature readings. If these are low, definitely get help in
correcting the situation.
But be aware that your practitioner will need to be skilled with thyroid
management, mineral supplements (especially magnesium, selenium and
iodine), food allergies, chemical sensitivities, heavy metal chelation, pre- and
probiotics and adrenal exhaustion. If he or she shows signs of having just one
string to their bow, get someone else.
Meantime, here are some therapeutic avenues to consider:
Treatment
I my practice I use a several-fold approach. The simplest, if the signs are early
enough and the patient is otherwise vigorous, is homeopathic thyroid
stimulant. I like a product called Thyroidea compositum from HEEL, in
Germany. It is one of the most powerful and useful non-drug substances I
have in my repertoire. Such is its impact on immunity I find myself prescribing
it often for my cancer patients seeking alternative remedies.
Note that the dysfunction can go back earlier, even to childhood diseases, and
Tonsilla comp and Engystol were also useful tools from the same supplier (bioenergetic testing required).
If a trial of this substance and dealing with related pathologies, such as food
allergies and heavy metals, appears ineffective, then supplementation with the
hormone can be considered.
If clinical signs are clearly present and yet the lab work doesnt confirm the
diagnosis, a "therapeutic trial" of thyroid supplementation is in order. The
patient becomes his or her own test bed. If taking the hormone results in a
rapid return to normal health, with renewed zest and loss of weight
encumbrance, is that itself not adequate evidence that the thyroid was indeed,
in some way, under-performing?
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Synthetic vs. Natural Replacement

Best I found was using desiccated thyroid extract by Armour. Desiccated
(dried) thyroid is a thyroid hormone replacement drug, prepared from the
thyroid gland from pigs -- also known as "porcine thyroid." Other brand names
include Nature-throid, and Westhroid.
Desiccated extract has been on the market and safely used for more than 100
years. When synthetic thyroxine was introduced, there was a great deal of
baloney and marketing hype about how modern it was, compared to "oldfashioned" thyroid extractand many doctors switched patients over to the
synthetic medication. When the patient went into a steep decline as a result,
he or she was told, Its your age.
Better than T4, is T3, which is far more effective clinically. But really whole
thyroid gland extract is the only option: it works so well, I am sure there must
be other unidentified natural elements present, which make it clinically superior
to other forms.
For strict vegans and those allergic to pork, we can use synthetic thyroid.
Otherwise, steer clear. Of course there is intense pressure from orthodox
colleagues to relegate desiccated thyroid extract to history. They would claim
their opposition to the extract is science-based. However, thats not true,
because there are no proper studies that compare levothyroxine to desiccated
thyroid in terms of effectiveness at resolving patient symptoms; only
comparisons at tinkering with blood levels.
So despite orthodox claims to rely on science, the fact is, the science doesn't
exist to bolster the arguments that levothyroxine is clinically superior to
desiccated thyroid in resolving symptoms.
Suppliers
Youll see Armour by Forest Labs, the oldest on the market, then Naturethroid
and Westhroid which came into the picture in the late 1930sby RLC Labs.
A new generic by Acella, NP Thyroid, hit the picture by late 2010 and is
popular. There is Thyroid-S or Thiroyd from Thailand with excellent results,
and Erfas Thyroid from Canada. Australia uses compounded desiccated
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thyroid powder and there are many compounding (traditional) pharmacies

around the world, which can help you.
It is always wise to start a patient on a smaller dose of desiccated thyroid than
he or she will ultimately need, such as 0.5 grain (60 mg). This will help the
body get used to more normal levels and in the process there may be other
issues which can reveal themselves, such as sluggish adrenals or low
Ferritin/iron levels.
Go up by 0.5 grain every 2 3 weeks. At 3 grains, pause at that dose for a
further 4 weeks, to give the T4 time to build (which can take 4-6 weeks). Its
unlikely indeed that anyone would need more than 5 grains.
I cannot recommend you self-dose but in such a situation, 3.5 grains would be
the maximum.
You can just swallow the grains or take them sublingually. When taking
desiccated thyroid extract, it is important to avoid iron, estrogen and calcium
supplements at the same time, since all bind the thyroid hormones to some
degree.
Iron
However, we NEED iron, to make thyroid hormone work. Iron is involved in
the secretion pathways, such as the conversion of T4 to T3.
Insufficient iron levels alter and reduces the resultant T3, besides binding T3. I
have already explained that T3 is far better than T4.
Also, low iron levels can increase circulating concentrations of TSH. Thats bad:
conventional doctors go nuts when they see raised TSH. To them it means the
patient is overdosing on thyroid hormones (wrong), so they prognosticate
heart attacks and osteoporosis. This may frighten the patient away from the
only real cure of their misery.
Good website for self-help information and notes:
www.stopthethyroidmadness.com, run by Janie Bowthorpe. She knows more
than most doctors! (She should, she suffered thyroid Hell herself and has
made a career out of learning the full thyroid story).
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Plus of course the Broda Barnes Research Foundation:www.brodabarnes.org

Disclaimer
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